DENVER — President Donald Trump on Sunday eviscerated his presidential portrait that hangs inside the Colorado Capitol building, calling it “truly the worst” and attacking the artist and Gov. Jared Polis in the process.
“Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before,” Trump wrote in a post on his social network, Truth Social.
He compared his portrait to the one depicting his predecessor during his first term, former President Barack Obama, which hangs next to the Trump portrait.
“He looks wonderful, but the one on me is truly the worst,” claiming “many people from Colorado have called and written to complain.”
Trump then blamed the purportedly low-quality portrait on Gov. Polis.
Polis, though, was elected as Colorado’s governor months after the portrait was paid for. Colorado’s Senate Republicans raised the $10,000 in donations needed to complete Trump’s portrait. Polis was elected governor in November of that year.
The portrait was unveiled in 2019.
“Gov. Polis was surprised to learn the President of the United States is an aficionado of our Colorado State Capitol and its artwork,” a spokesperson for the governor’s office said in a statement to Denver7. “The State Capitol was completed in 1901, and features Rose Onyx and White Yule Marble mined in Colorado, and includes portraits of former Presidents and former governors. We appreciate the President and everyone’s interest in our capitol building and are always looking for any opportunity to improve our visitor experience.”
Before Trump’s portrait graced the walls of the Colorado Capitol, a prankster placed a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin beneath the spot reserved for Trump’s portrait.
'Pressure in every direction'
Back in 2019, Denver7 spoke to Sarah Broadman, the woman who painted Trump's portrait, and Obama's before that, for the Colorado Capitol. She told us about the pressure that falls on the artist of a presidential portrait.
“It’s an enormous step in a portrait painter’s life,” she said. “There’s pressure in every direction. I get pressured to painting this certain style from one group of people and a different style from someone else because it’s a political thing.”
She told us she went through thousands of photos of Trump to pick the right one to paint, and the approval process took weeks.
She said she didn't want the portrait to be a political statement.
“At the door of my studio I tried to leave any politics behind," she said. "I paint the essence of a human being. That’s what I do."
- Watch our full story with Broadman from 2019 in the video player below:
Trump mentions Aurora again
The president used his ire about the portrait to once again shine a spotlight on Aurora and the presence of violent crime there. Aurora, of course, became the poster child for Trump’s promises on immigration policy, coming to a head when he visited the outskirts of the city for a rally in the weeks before the 2024 election.
“I am speaking on [behalf of people who have complained about the portrait] to the Radical Left Governor, Jared Polis, who is extremely weak on Crime, in particular with respect to Tren de Aragua, which practically took over Aurora (Don’t worry, we saved it!), to take it down,” Trump’s post reads. “Jared should be ashamed of himself!”
The Denver metro, and Aurora specifically, have been the target of several Drug Enforcement Administration operations in the early days of Trump’s second presidency.
Derek Maltz, the acting DEA administrator who stepped into his role just after Trump’s inauguration in January, said in an exclusive interview with Denver7 Investigates that Colorado is “ground zero for some of the most violent criminals in America”and that he’s learned more about TdA from the DEA’s Rocky Mountain field office than he has anywhere else.
- Watch the full interview in the video player below:
After the DEA conducted four separate operations in the metro – including one in Aurora that netted the arrest of one suspected TdA member – on Jan. 29, special agent in charge David Olesky told reporters there is a renewed focus on immigration enforcement under Trump.
“We’re getting absolutely all the resources that we need not only at the federal level but at the local level as well,” he said. “And when it comes to immigration, that is just one of the tools in the toolbox that we’re going to be able to use to remove those violent criminals and drug traffickers from the communities.”
Still, there are questions about how many of the people arrested go on to actually face charges or face deportation. None of the 49 arrestees at a “TdA invitation only party” in Adams County in January were facing charges a week after the operation.